Structural Deficiencies in the American System

Abstract

Hegel reflected upon the desirable connections between the economic and the political domain. He saw a number of structural difficulties that had to be addressed. Some of the solutions that he himself advocated are now unacceptable. Still, the new approach developed by the United States does not seem to be satisfactory either.

The work of Goetz Briefs teaches us how the structural difficulties, pointed to by Hegel, develop into specific anomalies in all Western countries. The work of Mancur Olson, Jr. teaches us that countries blessed with uninterrupted democracies are burdened with an economic growth retardant. The work of Theodore Lowi points to the specific anomalies generated by the deficient American approach to those structural difficulties. All three authors see the emergence of interest groups, which dominate the political scene, as the concrete form of the structural difficulties inherent in combining the free market with democracy.

A public religious document — Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy (U.S. Bishops’ Pastoral, 1984) — both praises and criticizes the American situation. The descriptive criticism by the religious document supports the theoretical criticism of Briefs and Lowi and could be called an illustration of Hegel’s claim that in all its richness, a society based on the free market is not rich enough to deal with poverty.